The Distroless Linux Future May Be Coming

January 12, 2026 by 10 Comments

Over the decades the number of Linux distributions has effectively exploded, from a handful in the late ’90s to quite literally hundreds today, not counting minor variations. There lately seems to be a counter-movement brewing in response to this fragmentation, with Project Bluefin’s Distroless project being the latest addition here. Also notable are KDE’s efforts, with KDE Linux as its own top-down KDE-based distro, but now with a switch to BuildStream from Arch likely as a distroless move.

It should be clear that there is no obvious course here yet, and that opinions are very much divided. The idea of ‘Linux’ becoming a more singular OS appeals to some, while to others it’s the antithesis of what ‘Linux’ is about. This much becomes clear in [Brodie Robertson]’s exploration of this topic as well.

The way to think about ‘distroless’ is that there is a common base using the Freedesktop SDK on which the customization layer is applied, such as Bluefin, KDE or Gnome’s environments. You could think of this base as the common runtime, using the Freedesktop standards for interoperability for a user-selected layer that’s installed on top. This way the idea of basing a distro on a specific distro is tossed out in favor of something that’s vaguely reminiscent of the Linux Standard Base attempt at standardization.

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Michelson Interferometer Comes Home Cheap

January 12, 2026 by 4 Comments

We suspect there are three kinds of people in the world. People who have access to a Michelson Interferometer and are glad, those who don’t have one and don’t know what one is, and a very small number of people who want one but don’t have one. But since [Longest Path Search] built one using 3D printing, maybe the third group will dwindle down to nothing.

If you are in the second camp, a Michelson interferometer is a device for measuring very small changes in the length of optical paths (oversimplifying, a distance). It does this by splitting a laser into two parts. One part reflects off a mirror at a fixed distance from the splitter. The other reflects off another, often movable, mirror. The beam splitter also recombines the two beams when they reflect back, producing an interference pattern that varies with differences in the path length between the splitter and the mirror. For example, if the air between the splitter and one mirror changes temperature, the change in the refraction index will cause a minute difference in the beam, which will show up using this instrument.

The device has been used to detect gravitational waves, study the sun and the upper atmosphere, and also helped disprove the theory that light is transmitted through a medium known as luminiferous aether.

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Illustrated Kristina with an IBM Model M keyboard floating between her hands.

Keebin’ With Kristina: The One With The Cheap-O Keyboard

January 12, 2026 by No comments

All right, I’ll cut to the chase: Cheap03xD is mainly so cheap because the PCB falls within a 10 x 10 cm footprint. The point was to make a very affordable keyboard — all the parts come to ~40 Euro (~$47). So it would seem that [Lander03xD_] succeeded.

A 36-key, no-frills split keyboard whose PCBs fit in a 10 x 10 cm footprint.
Image by [Lander03xD_] via reddit
Cheap03xD is all the things — 36-key, split, column-staggered, wireless, hot-swappable, and uses ZMK. The batteries are easily replaceable, and no they don’t get in the way.

Those are MMD Princess silent switches, which I wouldn’t choose, but [Lander03xD_] is taking this board to the office, so I get it. They sure are a nice shade of pink, anyway, and they go really well with the pastels of the DSA keycaps and the bezel.

One cool thing to note is that the PCBs are reversible, like the ErgoDox. This isn’t [Lander03xD_]’s first board, and it won’t be the last.

Now, let’s talk batteries. [Saixos] pointed out that the design doesn’t appear to include a protection circuit. In case you can’t tell from where you’re sitting, those are nice!nano clones that [Lander03xD_] is using, and they expect a protection circuit.

[Lander03xD_] is going to look through the docs and see what’s what. The goal is not to have any daughter boards, so this may take some rethinking.

Via reddit

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Chasing The Coca-Cola Recipe

January 12, 2026 by 29 Comments

One of the most widely recognised product brands in the world is probably Coca-Cola, and its formula is famously kept a secret through precautions that probably rival those of many nation states. There are other colas, and there are many amateurs who have tried to copy Coke’s flavour, but in well over a century, nobody has managed it. Why does [LabCoatz] think his attempt will be successful where others failed? He has friends with their own mass spectrometers.

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A Linux Power User Puts SteamOS To Work

January 12, 2026 by 9 Comments

The line between a Linux user and a Linux power user is a bit gray, and a bit wide. Most people who install Linux already have more computer literacy than average, and the platform has long encouraged experimentation and construction in a way macOS and Windows generally aren’t designed for. Traditional Linux distributions often ask more of their users as well, requiring at least a passing familiarity with the terminal and the operating system’s internals especially once something inevitably breaks.

In recent years, however, a different design philosophy has been gaining ground. Immutable Linux distributions like Fedora Silverblue, openSUSE MicroOS, and NixOS dramatically reduce the chances an installation behaves erratically by making direct changes to the underlying system either impossible or irrelevant.

SteamOS fits squarely into this category as well. While it’s best known for its console-like gaming mode it also includes a fully featured Linux desktop, which is a major part of its appeal and the reason I bought a Steam Deck in the first place. For someone coming from Windows or macOS, this desktop provides a familiar, fully functional environment: web browsing, media playback, and other basic tools all work out of the box.

As a Linux power user encountering an immutable desktop for the first time, though, that desktop mode wasn’t quite what I expected. It handles these everyday tasks exceptionally well, but performing the home sysadmin chores that are second nature to me on a Debian system takes a very different mindset and a bit of effort. Continue reading “A Linux Power User Puts SteamOS To Work” →

High-Tech Trailer Brings Water Home

January 12, 2026 by 25 Comments

Living without standard utility hookups like electricity, Internet, water, and sewer comes with a whole host of challenges, all of which are most commonly solved by spending lots of money. For electricity, a solar array or a generator is fairly common. The Internet can similarly be accessed via a satellite link if wires aren’t available. For water, most people will drill a well, but that gets similarly expensive. [Cranktown City] recently bought an off-grid home and needed a way to get water to it on a budget, so he built this water trailer instead.

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Making A CRT Spin Right Round, Round, Round

January 12, 2026 by 43 Comments

If you’ve got a decent CRT monitor, you can usually adjust the settings to make sure the image scans nicely across the whole display. But what if you could rotate the whole image itself? [Jeri Ellsworth] has shown us how to achieve this with an amusing mechanical hack.

The trick behind this is simple. On a standard CRT, the deflection yoke uses magnetic coils to steer the electron beam in the X and Y axes, spraying electrons at the phosphors as needed. To rotate the display as a whole, you could do some complicated maths and change how you drive the coils and steer the electron beams… or you could just rotate the entire yoke instead. [Jeri] achieves this by putting the whole deflection yoke on a custom slip ring assembly. This allows it to receive power and signal as it rotates around the neck of the tube, driven by a stepper motor. Continue reading “Making A CRT Spin Right Round, Round, Round” →